With semi-persistent scheduling, for downlink VoIP (voice over IP (Internet Protocol)) communications to a mobile device, a periodic DL (downlink) transmission resource is allocated during a talk-spurt on the downlink. The same/resource is allocated each time. The allocation is turned on during each of the talk-spurts and off between talk-spurts. In this manner, explicit signalling to request an allocation, and to grant a particular VoIP allocation is not required. Semi-persistent scheduling for uplink VoIP communications from a mobile station is similar.
In addition to regular VoIP traffic, mobile devices also need the ability to send and transmit larger IP packets. Such larger IP packets are likely to be relatively infrequent compared to the frequency of regular VoIP transmissions. Such packets might include uncompressed IP packets, RTCP (Remote Transmit Power Control) packets, SIP/SDP (Session Initiation Protocol/Session Description Protocol) packets, etc. Such IP packets may be several hundreds of bytes in size and may have high priority. In addition, larger packets may be required to transmit RRC (Radio Resource Control) Signalling messages. Examples of this are handover related messages such as measurement reports. Some mobile devices will also need the ability to deliver a mixed service in which case services in addition to VoIP need to be provided to the mobile device, such as e-mail, web browsing etc.